What Is Critical Reading?
Note: These remarks are primarily directed at non-fictional texts.
Retrieved from: Dan Kurland's www.criticalreading.com on February 15,
2010
Facts v. Interpretation
To non -critical readers, texts provide facts. Readers gain knowledge by memorizing the statements within a text.
To the critical reader, any single text provides but one portrayal of the facts, one individual’s “take” on the subject matter. Critical readers thus recognize not only what a text says, but also
how that text portrays the subject matter. They recognize the various ways in which each and every text is the unique creation of a unique author.
A non-critical reader might read a history book to learn the facts of the situation or to discover an accepted interpretation of those events. A critical reader might read the same work to appreciate how a particular perspective on the events and a particular selection of facts can lead to particular understanding.
What a Text Says, Does, and Means: Reaching for an Interpretation
Non-critical reading is satisfied with recognizing what a text says and restating the key remarks.
Critical reading goes two steps further. Having recognized what a text says, it reflects on what the text does by making such remarks. Is it offering examples? Arguing? Appealing for sympathy? Making a contrast to clarify a point? Finally, critical readers then infer what the text, as a whole, means, based on the earlier analysis.
These three steps or modes of analysis are reflected in three types of reading and discussion:
What a text says – restatement
What a text does – description
What a text means – interpretation .
You can distinguish each mode of analysis by the subject matter of the discussion:
What a text says – restatement – talks about the same topic as the original text
What a text does – description – discusses aspects of the discussion itself
What a text means – interpretation — analyzes the text and asserts a meaning for the text as a whole
Textbooks on critical reading commonly ask students to accomplish certain goals:
to recognize an author’s purpose to understand tone and persuasive elements
to recognize bias
Notice that none of these goals actually refers to something on the page. Each requires inferences from evidence within the text:
recognizing purpose involves inferring a basis for choices of content and language recognizing tone and persuasive elements involves classifying the nature of language
choices
recognizing bias involves classifying the nature of patterns of choice of content and
language
Critical reading is not simply close and careful reading. To read critically, one must actively recognize and analyze evidence upon the page.
Analysis and Inference: The Tools of Critical Reading
These web pages are designed to take the mystery out of critical reading. They are designed to show you what to look for ( analysis ) and how to think about what you find ( inference ) .
The first part —what to look for— involves recognizing those aspects of a discussion that control the meaning.
The second part —how to think about what you find— involves the processes of inference, the interpretation of data from within the text.
Recall that critical reading assumes that each author offers a portrayal of the topic. Critical reading thus relies on an examination of those choices that any and all authors must make when framing a presentation: choices of content, language, and structure. Readers examine each of the three areas of choice, and consider their effect on the meaning.
Choice: Texts
As with photography, all written expression involves choices. Imagine you are seated before a blank page. What choices must be made?
For openers you have to say something. Whether you start with an observation, a statement of belief, or simply a thought, you have to say something. We'll call that content.
Finally, you cannot simply rattle off disconnected remarks. (Well, you could, but they would have little meaning!) The remarks must be related to one another, from sentence to sentence and within the discussion as a whole. We'll call that structure,
Critical readers are consciously aware of
the choice of contentThey look at the content, at the
evidence marshaled for an argument, the illustrations used to explain ideas, and the details presented within a description. That uniqueness is defined by choices of content, language and structure. . They distinguish between assertions of fact, opinion, and belief. They are aware whether evidence consists of references to published data, anecdotes, or speculation, and they evaluate the persuasiveness of a text accordingly.
Critical readers are aware of
how language is being used. They notice whether a text refers
to someone as a "bean counter" (no respect) or "an academic statistician" (suggesting
professionalism), whether some is said to have "asserted a claim" (with confidence, and no need for proof) or "floated a claim" (without backing, as a trial balloon). And they draw inferences from the choice of language they observe.
Critical readers are aware of
the structure of a discussion, both in terms of the movement of
ideas from beginning to end and in terms of the relationship of ideas throughout the discussion. They distinguish between assertions offered as reason or conclusion, cause or effect, evidence or illustration. They recognize patterns of contrast and distinguish whether contrasting ideas are shown to be dissimilar, competing, or contradictory.
All authors confront three areas of choice:
the choice of content the choice of language
the choice of structure
Choices must be made in each of these areas, and each choice contributes to the thought of the text as a whole.
Note that we do not list elements such as tone, style, perspective, purpose, and message. While these are all useful perspectives for discussing texts, they are all based on, and reflect, the choice of content, language, and structure.
Implications For Reading
To non-critical readers, texts provide facts. Knowledge comes from memorizing the statements within a text. To the critical reader, any single text provides but one portrayal of the facts, one individual's “take” on the subject. The content of a text reflects what an author takes as “the facts of the matter.” By examining these choices, readers recognize not only what a text says, but also how the text portrays the subject matter.
The first step in an analysis of a text, then, must be to look at the content, at the evidence
marshaled for an argument, the illustrations used to explain ideas, and the details presented within a description. Not that any particular author/text is necessarily wrong. We simply recognize the degree to which each and every text is the unique creation of a unique author. That uniqueness is defined by choices of content, language and structure.
Critical readers are consciously aware of the act of choice underlying the content. They
distinguish between assertions of fact, opinion, and belief. They are aware whether evidence consists of references to published data, anecdotes, or speculation, and they evaluate the persuasiveness of a text accordingly.
Critical readers are aware of how language is being used. They notice whether a text
refers to someone as a bean counter (no respect) or an academic statistician (suggesting professionalism), whether some is said to have asserted a claim (with confidence, and no need for proof) or floated a claim (without backing, as a trial balloon). And they draw inferences from the choice of language they observe.
Critical readers are aware of the structure of a discussion, both in terms of the movement
of ideas from beginning to end and in terms of the relationship of ideas throughout the discussion. They distinguish between assertions offered as reason or conclusion, cause or effect, evidence or illustration. They recognize patterns of contrast and distinguish whether contrasting ideas are shown to be dissimilar, competing, or contradictory.
These web pages examine each of the three areas of choice. They considers their effect on the meaning, and how readers might identify and respond to them.
Implications For Writing
Your first step as a writer is to generate some content, to put forth assumptions, evidence, and arguments that you can then defend and from which you can draw conclusions.
Having generated some initial discussion, the task as editor is then to adjust the discussion to assure that it presents a coherent, consistent, and comprehensive discussion As we shall see in Chapter Twelve, what we take as evidence lies at the basis of all argument, and shapes and predetermines the outcome of an argument.
Writing is ultimately concerned with
what we say (content), how we say it (language), and
the flow from one assertion to another, how ideas connect to one another to convey
broader meaning (structure).
We may initially write in an unstructured manner, concerned simply with getting some ideas on the page rather than in creating a finished document right off the bat. Revision and editing then focuses on two concerns:
correcting spelling, grammar, and punctuation ensuring a coherent flow of ideas.
To ensure a coherent flow of ideas, we must focus on the three areas of choice:
providing appropriate and sufficient arguments and examples?
choosing terms that are precise, appropriate, and persuasive?
We edit to assure the content and language and structure. An increased awareness of the impact of choices of content, language, and structure can help students develop habits of rewriting and revision.
Choices: The Choice of Content
People obtain information and ideas from many sources. They meet people, attend classes, and overhear conversations. They watch television, listen to the radio, read newspapers, and surf the Internet. Some information they gain vicariously, some they seek out. They experience some things first-hand, on their own; others they experience second-hand, through the reports of others.
Any two people will have different experiences. They will be in different places and see different things. They will meet different people and be influenced by different values and information. They will come to be interested in different topics, concerned with different issues, and hold different beliefs.
From our unique knowledge and experience, we each make sense of the world. We come to accept different assertions as "the facts" of the matter. We make evaluations, form opinions, assert priorities, and arrive at conclusions. We reach—and preach—different perceptions and understandings of the world.
Example: America
Imagine someone asked to list examples of American culture. They might mention the space shuttle, rap music, "Jeopardy," teen pregnancy, or Little League baseball. All of these are
examples of American culture, yet each portrays America differently. The picture offered depends on the evidence chosen. America is all of them, you say? But it is also so much more. Any list would be incomplete, but one portrayal of realityExample: Time Capsules.
Example: Beard's History
At one time, many considered Charles Beard'sA Basic History of the United Statesthe authoritative text in its field. Students wanting to know American history read Beard. At some point in each student's career, however, each came to the realization that Beard's history of the United States offered just that—notthehistory of the United States, butBeard'shistory of the United States. Beard, himself, was quite aware of the subjectivity of his own work:
Every student of history knows that his colleagues have been influenced in their selection and ordering of materials by their biases, prejudices, beliefs, affections, general upbringing, and experience . . . . Every written history—of a village, town, county, state, nation, race, group, class, idea or the wide world—is a selection and arrangement of facts, of recorded fragments of past actuality. And the selection and arrangement of facts—a combined and complex intellectual operation—is an act of choice, conviction, and interpretation respecting values, is an act of thought. Facts, multitudinous and beyond calculation, are known, but they do not select
themselves or force themselves automatically into any fixed scheme of arrangement in the mind of the historian. They are selected and ordered by him as he thinks.
Like any other text, Beard's offers but one of many credible accounts and interpretations. We can expect no more.
Using the notion of fiction to suggest the extent to which all authors must transmit their own vision of the world, another writer observed:
Reality presents a random, infinite supply of details, and the job of writers—whether you consider yourself a historian, a biographer, or a novelist—is similar: to create a coherent narrative. You can't select everything, and in making choices, thus putting an emphasis here and diminishing it there, you invariably move into the realm of fiction. {Jay Parini, “Delving Into the World of Dreams by Blending Fact and Fiction,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 27, 1998, p. B4.}
A recent high school American history text, Build Our Nation, covers the Depression Era and the entire term of President Roosevelt in thirty-three lines. On the other hand, it devotes two full pages to Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr.'s breaking of Lou Gehrig's “Iron Man” record for consecutive baseball games played. What image of America do these examples, taken together, portray?
Example: Breast Feeding
The New York Times posed the following question:
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that babies be breast-fed for at least one year and beyond " for as long as mutually desired." Do you agree?
The opposing answers appear below. YES
Ruth A. Lawrence, M.D.
Professor of Pediatrics, University of Rochester
Our society has been so critical of women who have nursed beyond one year. It is perfectly normal. It is done around the world and has been for centuries. Babies wean at different times; in fact, many anthropologists think the normal time to breast-feed is about four years. In multiple studies, we find that babies who are breast-fed beyond one year, instead of clinging to their mothers, are stable, self-assured children. The sexualization of the breast does not occur in this age group under ordinary circumstances. Babies associate the breast with nourishment and have no reaction that may be considered sexual. As for the father's role, it is equal but different. Every baby needs a non-nutritive cuddler. That's the father.
NO
Joan K. Peters
Author, "When Women Work: Loving Our Children Without Sacrificing Our Selves"
Late nursing limits the father's involvement and means that the husband can't take on some of the most intimate child-rearing tasks. His parenting is not about that close bonding, making it harder for him to participate. Late nursing is also difficult for working women. When 66 percent of mothers of children under 6 work, who is available in that way and who wants to create that kind of dependence that such nursing engenders? It may be medically correct, but all decisions about children must be weighed, medical vs. social vs. psychological. What is best for a family must be considered, and that includes what is best for a child, because ultimately it means what is going to create the happiest atmosphere.
What are we to make of the disagreement? Indeed, why do the two respondents differ?
The answer comes in examining the nature of the pattern of examples they each offer. The first looks at the effect on the baby, arguing that the practice is accepted as in the baby's best interest by the world, anthropologists, and studies. It rejects arguments related to adverse affects on sexuality and a denial of the father's role in the baby's life.
The second looks at the effect on the parents and parenting, in fact granting the medical argument that it might be in the baby's best interests.
In each case, the choice of content both determines and reflects the overall perspective and understanding.
Choices: The Choice of Language
Just as authors must choose what to say, they must choose how to say it. The choice of content and language are closely related. Choices of content and language reflect and reinforce each other.
On August 31, 1998, after an unprecedented three-year period of rising prices, the stock market dropped 513 points, the second largest point (as against percentage) drop in history at that time. For USA Today, it was an exciting day at the office:
The Dow Jones industrial average [the most common stock market performance indicator] plunged 513 points Monday, erasing all of its 1998 gains as investors fled a global crisis that is upending the longest-running bull market in history.
The Dow's 6.4% decline to 7539 brought its six-week loss to 19.3%, less than 1% shy of an official bear [selling] market. It now is down 5% for 1998. Damage was even greater in the broader markets; the Nasdaq composite [another stock performance indicator] dropped 140 points, or 8.6%, to 1499 in its worst-ever point decline.
"Dow's yearly gain gone on Wall Street,"USA Today, September 1, 1998, http://www.usatoday.com/money/mphotof.htm. updated 02:21 AM ET.
A reliance on statistics lends an objective tone to the coverage. Nevertheless, the pattern of terms plunged… erasing… fled …upending …down …dropped …worst-ever point decline
clearly emphasizes the fall of the market.
Other newspapers viewed the event differently. The opening paragraphs of the news articles below provide essentially the same information (content), but they tell somewhat different stories, implying different implications and consequences. For the Austin American-Statesman, it was a particularly dramatic day:
The stock market's summer swoon turned into a dramatic rout Monday as the Dow Jones industrial average plunged more than 500 points, its second-worst point drop in history. Stocks now teeter on the edge of their first bear market since 1990.
The selection of dramatic terms (summer swoon… dramatic rout…plunged… teeter on the edge…) cannot be missed. A writer for The New York Times saw the event in a more psychological vein:
Gloom, fear, pain and queasiness. Around the nation, anxieties ran high yesterday as investors big and small watched the jagged lines fall and much of the year's profits evaporate in a breathtaking 512-point plunge on Wall Street. Many called it scary, but almost no one seemed ready to panic.
Robert D. McFadden, "It's Disturbing, to Put It Mildly, But Investors Say They'll Hold On,"The New York Times, September 1, 1998, p. 1.
Gloom, fear, pain and queasiness…anxieties…breathtaking… plunge… scary…panic. The choices of content and language focus more on the reaction of investors than on the stock market itself. A pattern of terms of adverse psychological feelings is apparent. The choice of terms invariably shapes how a topic is portrayed. All of the above articles convey the fact that the stock market dropped significantly. All of the articles also interpret the significance of that drop through their choice of language. Indeed, there is no way to convey the information without coloring the report in some way! To use bland language would itself downplay the significance of the event.
The stock market average dropped 513 points yesterday. It had dropped by more once before. How we say something is often as important as what we say.
Choices: The Choice of Structure
The third area of choice open to an author, and hence the third area to focus when analyzing and constructing texts, involves structure.
Here we look at two meanings of structure, following the two parts of analysis. The first sense of structure we examine is in the sense of parts coming together to form a larger unit. The second sense is in terms of the relationships between parts.
Recognizing Parts
Analysis makes sense of something by breaking it into parts. Instead of examining a whole all at one time, we examine smaller, more isolated portions.
Consider the following string of letters:
XXOOXXOOXXOOOOXXXXOOOXXXOOO
To make sense of the whole, we try to break it into more manageable, and hopefully more meaningful, parts. Initially we might see clusters of letters within the string:
XX OO XX OO XX OOOO XXXX OOO XXX OOO
From one perspective, we have grouped similar elements together, X's with adjacent X's and O's with adjacent O's. From another perspective, we have separated the whole into parts, either X's or O's. Either way, we break the whole into parts. Writers use this process when they signal
the boundary of words with spaces, the boundaries of sentences with periods,
the boundaries of paragraphs with indentation,
Readers use this model when they group words within a sentence into phrases or group paragraphs of a text into larger sections.
From another perspective, we can analyze the earlier string as patterns (of X's or O's) running throughout the string.
XX XX XX XXXX XXX OO OO OOOO OOO OOO
We use this model when examining patterns of content or language usage throughout a portion of a text. In the above example, we recognize that certain elements go together to form parts or patterns. Part and parcel of this action is recognizing how those elements go together—and giving them a name. When we group items we classify them under a common heading. We recognize what they have in common and how they differ from other items. With texts, we talk about kinds of evidence, kinds of language usage, kinds of structure. As we shall see in detail below, much of critical reading depends on not only seeing what the examples are, but what the examples are examples of.
Recognizing Relationships
Forming parts is only the first step in analysis. We must then recognize how the parts are related to each other.
In the discussion here, we are concerned with
how words are related to form phrases and sentences how sentences are related to form paragraphs
how paragraphs are related to form complete texts , and
how patterns of content and language are related to shape the thought of a text as a
whole .
The first case, grouping words to find meaning within sentences, involves the study of English grammar (see the Appendix). The remaining cases can be discussed in terms of the same set of relationship categories. The primary relationships of concern throughout our discussion are:
elements in a series : a listing of similar items, often in a distinct order, whether in terms
of location, size, importance, etc.
time order or chronological listing : a series of events in order of occurrence
general/specific relationship : examples and generalizations
comparison : similarity and/or difference (contrast)
logical relationships : reason/conclusion, cause/effect, and conditional relationship
between factors
Ideally, speakers mean what they say and say what they mean. Spoken communication is not that simple. Much of what we understand—whether when listening or reading—we understand indirectly, by inference. Listening involves a complex combination of hearing words, analyzing sentence structure, and attempting to find meaning within the context of the given situation.
The situation with the written word is no different. A text does not contain a meaning.
Readersconstructmeaning by what they take the words to mean and how they process sentences to find meaning.Readers draw on their knowledge of the language and of conventions of social communication. They also draw on other factors, such as knowledge of the author (“Would Henry say such a thing?), the occasion (“No one knew such things then!”), or the audience (“He’d never admit that publicly.”) They infer unstated meanings based on social conventions, shared
knowledge, shared experience, or shared values. They make sense of remarks by recognizing implications and drawing conclusions.
Readers read ideas more than words, and infer, rather than find, meaning.
Inferring Meaning
Consider the following statement:
The Senator admitted owning the gun that killed his wife.
On the face of it, we have a simple statement about what someone said. Our understanding, however, includes much that is not stated. We find meaning embedded in the words and phrases. Unpacking that meaning, we can see that the Senator was married and his wife is now dead— although this is not actually stated as such. (In fact, the sentence is about an admission of gun ownership.) It is as though the single sentence contains a number of assertions:
There is a Senator. He owns a gun.
He is married.
His wife is dead.
That gun caused her death.
The Senator admitted owning that gun.
Clearly, the original sentence is a clearer and simpler way of conveying all of this information. Writers take note!
On a more subtle level, we recognize that a public figure confronts involvement in a major crime. Our understanding need not stop there. We infer that the gun (or at least a bullet) has probably been recovered and identified as the murder weapon—or the notion of an admission would make little sense.
Are we reading things in here? Or are these meanings truly within the sentence? We are going beyond that the textsays, but not beyond what it actuallymeansto most readers.
Inferences such as these are essential to both written and spoken communication. Writers often only hint at what they mean, and mean much more than they actually seem to say. On the other hand, we can see the danger (and temptation) of assuming facts or interpretations for which evidence is not present, and recognize that a critical reader reads with an open mind, open to many possible interpretations.
The following story is often presented as a brain twister. In fact, it’s a reading exercise.
A man and his son are driving in a car. The car crashes into a tree, killing the father and seriously injuring his son. At the hospital, the boy needs to have surgery. Upon looking at the boy, the doctor says (telling the truth), "I cannot operate on him. He is my son."
How can this be? Decide on your answer before reading further.
Whether this passage is a brain twister or a reading passage, readers must assume that any lack of understanding is not due to the story, but due to their own lack of understanding. We must work harder to think about how the story might make sense.
We quickly see that we have to explain how a doctor can have a son ("I cannot operate on him. He is my son.") when at the same time the father is dead (“The car crashes into a tree, killing the father”). The answer: The doctor is the boy's mother. Many readers are blinded to this meaning by the sexist assumption that the doctor must be a male.
A somewhat similar example has been offered by Robert Skoglund, The Humble Farmer of Public Radio in Maine (http//www.TheHumbleFarmer.com), as follows:
We had visitors a week or so ago. Houseguests. Six of them. One of them was Oscar who teaches geology at the University in Utrecht. Now I love houseguests. Usually. But when they arrived I discovered that two of them couldn't even walk into the house. Had to be carried in. And then I found out they couldn't talk, either. What would you have done if you'd been in my place? How do you handle a situation like that?
See the end of the page for possibly the most appropriate advice.
Implications For Reading
All reading is an active, reflective, problem-solving process. We do not simply read words; we read ideas, thoughts that spring from the relationships of various assertions. The notion of inference equations is particularly powerful in this regard. Readers can use the notion of inference equations to test whether or not the ingredients for a given inferences are indeed present. To show lying, for instance, a text must show that someone made a statement that they knew was incorrect and that they made that assertion with the specific purpose of deception. If they did not know it was wrong at the time, it’s an error, not a lie. If they did not make the statement for the specific purpose of deception, we have a misstatement, not lying.
Implications For Writing
Writers must assure that the ingredients of the equation are present and clear, and that the desired relationships are signaled in a clear and effective way. As writers, we must be aware that our readers will interpret our thoughts.
We must strive to make our meaning as clear as possible. We must provide sufficient examples to make our ideas clear, as well as to short-circuit undesired interpretations. We must recognize what evidence is necessary and sufficient for our purpose, and assure that it is included.
And we must choose our terms carefully for accuracy and clarity of meaning, and spell out our exact thoughts in as much detail as possible. We must recognize biases our readers might bring to the text and explain and support our evidence as much as our conclusions
Restatement: Reading What a Text Says
Reading what a text says is more notable for what it does not include than for what it does.
Reading what a text says is concerned with basic comprehension, with simply following the thought of a discussion. We focus on understanding each sentence, sentence by sentence, and on following the thought from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph. There is no attempt to assess the nature of the discussion and no concern for an overall motive or intent. Reading what a text says is involved with rote learning.
Restatement generally takes the form of a summary, paraphrase, or précis. Restatements should avoid the same language as much as possible to avoid plagiarism and to show understanding. Reading what a text says is common under a variety of circumstances:
when learning the definitions and concepts of a new discipline,
when there is agreement on the facts of a situation and their interpretation,
when a text is taken to offer a complete and objective presentation, or
when the word of a specific author or source is accepted as authoritative.
Readers simply accept what a text states.
When first studying any academic topic, your initial goal will be to understand what others have discovered before you. Introductory courses ask students to learn terms, concepts, and data of the particular area of study. You are expected to use your imagination and your critical faculties to understand the concepts; you are not expected to question the assertions. The goal is to learn the commonly accepted paradigm for discussing topics in that field of study.
Finally, remember that repeating the assertions of a text need not suggest a denial of critical thinking, merely a postponing of, or preparation for, critical thinking.
Description: Describing What a Text Does
or an individual experience? What evidence is relied on? Does it quote medical authorities or offer anecdotes from everyday people? Does it appeal to reason or emotions? These are not questions about what a textsays, but about what the textdoes.They are not about AIDS, but aboutthe discussionof AIDS.
This second level of reading is concerned not only with understanding individual remarks, but also with recognizing the structure of a discussion. We examine what a text does to convey ideas. We might read this way to understand how an editorial justifies a particular conclusion, or how a history text supports a particular interpretation of events.
At the previous level of reading, restatement, we demonstrated comprehension by repeating the thought of the text. Here we are concerned with describing the discussion:
what topics are discussed?
what examples and evidence are used?
what conclusions are reached?
We want to recognize and describe how evidence is marshaled to reach a final position, rather than simply follow remarks from sentence to sentence.
This level of reading looks at broad portions of the text to identify the structure of the discussion as a whole. On completion, we can not only repeat what the text says, but can also describe what the text does. We can identify how evidence is used and how the final points are reached.
A Variety of Descriptive Formats
Here we look at various models for describing the development of thought within a discussion as a whole. We shift from a focus on the trees, if you will, to the forest.
Recognizing Structure: An Analogy
To a casual observer, a tennis match consists of one person serving the ball, another returning it….over and over again. To someone who sees no structure, the game is simply a series of disconnected events. To someone who understands a tennis game, play is divided into games, games into sets, and sets into matches. The game has a structure. We make sense of the game as a whole by understanding each action within the overall structure of the match as a whole. Winning a point, for instance, has different implications at different parts of the game. Winning a point may be a minor occurrence early in the game, or match point at the end of the game.
Just as a tennis match involves more than exchanging serves, a text consists of more than simply a series of assertions. The notion of discussion, itself, suggests a starting point and a journey to other ideas. Let's say an essay starts:
We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all people are created equal. Where could the discussion go from here?
it could
explain or explicateone of the topics mentioned:
What do we mean by “created equal”? Equal how?
offer reasons or evidencefor the assertion:
draw a conclusion or inference
Does this imply people should be treated, or how government should be formed?
look at related thoughts
Other statements may or may not be truths, or may be truths but may not be self-evident.
examine historical examples
What role does this idea play in the French Revolution? The Russian Revolution? The American Revolution?
A text could do any, all, or none of the above. It all depends on where the author wants to go.
Different authors will choose to follow different lines of argument and different paths for the discussion to different conclusions. To fully understand the discussion as a whole, to understand the remarks within the context and in relationship to each other, we must be aware of the direction the discussion takes.
Whatever a text may say, however a text may be organized, readers assume that the material upon the page is the realization of a plan. If a text is well written, there is a logical structure to the argument. There is a clear beginning and end, a clear starting point on which reader and writer can agree, and a clear conclusion developed and supported by the earlier material. There is a clear intent and purpose to the remarks and the overall organization. We know where the author is going, and can watch as the text progresses to a seemingly inevitable conclusion.
As when on a trip, readers want to know the ultimate destination and how long it will take to get there. As they travel/read, they want to be able to recognize the route or plan. We want to know whether a story or article is one page or seventeen so that we might allocate our time and attention effectively. The shorter the piece, the longer we might dwell on each argument. The longer the piece, the more we might continue on when confused to see if the later material makes things clearer. We want to have a sense of where a text or argument ends so that we can see our progress in perspective.
To recognize a plan we must possess a double awareness:
what the essay asserts about people and the world—what the text says
how the discussion within the essay is structured—what the text does
We want to recognize an underlying strategy to the remarks, a sequence by which remarks play different roles in the development of the final thought. As with the tennis match, we anticipate a conclusion and try to recognize where we are at any step along the way.
A Variety Of Descriptive Formats
What a text "does" can be described in a variety of ways. Different models and terminologies view the structure of texts differently. Some models overlap one another, and aspects of a variety of models can be brought to bear to capture insights about any single text.
Here we look at five models.
The Relationship Model
The Rhetorical Model
The Role Model
The Task Model
These models are explained at Descriptive Formats: Ways to Desribe a Discussion
All of these models have a common purpose: to describe the flow of discussion and/or indicate how arguments are advanced. In practice, you should draw on as many models as you can to describe the structure of a presentation.
The ideas here should be familiar to most readers. The point is not that you must use all of these models in a discussion of a text, but that models and terminologysuch as thiscan be used to recognize and discuss what a text does at any point in the discussion.
NOTE: We should note one additional factor. We can often describe one remark in a variety of ways. Just as a person may, at the same time, be a son, father, and brother to different people, or a politician may hold views to the right of one politician and to the left of another politician, so a single sentence can be described in a variety of ways.
A sentence may be a reason, an explanation, or a description in relationship to different remarks. This is one reason for having a number of descriptive models. To truly describe something we often have to describe if from a variety of perspectives and in a variety of different relationships to other things.
Example: A Solution
The following passage is from a chemistry textbook.
A SOLUTION is a mixture of two or more substances dispersed as molecules, atoms or ions rather than as larger aggregates. If we mix sand and water, the sand grains are dispersed in the water; since the grains are much larger than molecules, we call this mixture a suspension, not a solution. After a while, the sand will settle to the bottom by gravity. Imagine doing this experiment with finer and finer grains. When the grains are small enough, they will not sink to the bottom, not matter how long you wait. We now have a colloidal dispersion. Though we cannot see the individual grains, the mixture appears cloudy in a strong beam of light (Tyndall effect). If, however, we stir sugar with water, the grains disappear and the result is a liquid that does not scatter light any more than water itself. This is a true solution, with individual sugar molecules dispersed among the water molecules.
What have we here?
A SOLUTION is a mixture of two or more substances dispersed as molecules, atoms or ions rather than as larger aggregates.
The passage opens with a definition of “solution.” Note that a solution is not simply a mixture of
two or more substances
but of
We must note the complete noun phrase.
The passage continues: If we mix sand and water,
We recognize the beginning of a hypothetical experiment, presumably as part of an explanation the sand grains are dispersed in the water;
further description of experiment.
since the grains are much larger than molecules, reason
we call this mixture a suspension, not a solution.
An alternative situation and alternative definition of a suspension After a while, the sand will settle to the bottom by gravity. continuing description of hypothetical experiment Imagine doing this experiment with finer and finer grains. continuing description of hypothetical experiment
When the grains are small enough, they will not sink to the bottom, not matter how long you wait. same experiment, different size particles.
We now have a colloidal dispersion. and third definition: colloidal dispersion.
Though we cannot see the individual grains, the mixture appears cloudy in a strong beam of light (Tyndall effect).
further description of colloidal dispersion. If, however, we stir sugar with water, additional change in experiment
the grains disappear and the result is a liquid that does not scatter light any more than water itself. This is a true solution, with individual sugar molecules dispersed among the water molecules.
final explication of a solution, emphasizing the size of the dispersed material as molecules.
A critical, self-aware reader thus reads on two dimensions: both what the text says and what it does. Indeed, each feeds the other recognition. Each is impossible without the other.
Implications For Reading
A description of a presentation might draw on any or all of the previous models at various levels of discussion. Differing perspectives might be employed at different levels of analysis.
The goal of each is the same: to isolate elements that shape how ideas are portrayed within the discussion. We can ask why a statement is included in a text— which is like asking why a speaker would bother saying it. What does it help accomplish? What purpose does it serve? How does it lead into or follow from other remarks? How are the ideas connected?
Implications for Writing
To make a case a writer must construct an argument, piece together examples and illustrations and justifications and explanations and conclusions. It's not only what we say, it's also what we do. As we've seen above, many ideas are conveyed not by stating them so much as by the reader inferring them from the relationships of ideas within the discussion.
When we know exactly what we want to say, we simply go out and say it. Other times, we have to assemble our evidence and our thoughts. We weigh which remarks should come first, and what additional evidence and arguments are essential to our conclusion. However we start, after some initial writing all writers must become readers. We must realize not only what we have said, but what we have done. And we must evaluate how what we have done will get us where we want to go. What additional ingredients are required? What other aspects must be considered? What misunderstandings must be prevented? This process is facilitated by two concepts: the notion of structure, and the notion of doing as well as saying.
The models for describing texts suggest other ways of outlining a text. We can outline not only shifts in topic, but also shifts in tactics, as when we shift from introduction to explanation to argument as with the rhetorical model. We can outline in terms of tactics of enticing, addressing, and convincing the reader as with the role model. We can outline in terms of similarities,
differences, and logical implications as with the relationships model. And we can mix the various models.
Finally, we can outline not only from beginning to end, but also in terms of patterns running throughout a text. We can outline the various viewpoints to be evaluated or the various participants to be discussed to make sure we hit all the required bases throughout the discussion.
The better the writing, the more the sentences clearly follow from, and lead, to one another. Writers can lead their reader and assure their own structure by making sure to include transition and relationship words. A sign of poorer writing is independent, disconnected thoughts—and with that assertions that are not supported by details, reasons or examples.
Descriptive Formats: Ways to Describe a Discussion
Beginning, Middle And End Model: Changes In Topic
The simplest way to describe a text is in terms of a beginning, middle, and an end. In writing class, teachers often speak of texts having an introduction, body, and conclusion.
The parts of a text do not have to be of the same length, and may not necessarily coincide with paragraph divisions. You can determine a beginning, middle and end only after having read the complete text. Many shifts that you note in your initial reading will seem minor once you get further into the text. What you take as the main idea in the early paragraphs you may come to see later as merely the catalyst for the discussion, or as a viewpoint refuted later in the discussion. Section headings may guide you, but critical readers verify that such headings adequately describe the text.
How should you distinguish between parts in deciding on a beginning, middle and end? The most obvious shifts are changes in topic. The discussion might shift in terms of discussing
parts of a whole, one after another
steps in a sequence, such as large to small, major to minor
steps in a logical argument
alternative conditions or circumstances
shifts in viewpoint or perspective
Note that parts need not be equal in length. One part may include a single sentence, another part five paragraphs. The point is not to divide the whole equally, but to divide it into units that recognize major features of the presentation as a whole.
Finally, note that this model can be expanded to lower levels of analysis:
beginning of discussion middle: main argument
o beginning of main argument
o middle of main argument
o end of main argument
end of discussion
The act of isolating a beginning, middle, and end of a discussion, by itself, doesn't tell us very much. But the effort can help you see the content more clearly. The activity of trying to divide the text into major parts may be the first step in seeing the content in detail.
The Relationship Model
Statements, and hence ideas, are usually related to each other in one of the following ways:
sequence or series
a listing of similar items, often in a distinct order, whether in terms of location, size, importance, etc.
time order/chronology : a series of events in order of occurrence
general/specific relationship: examples and generalizations
comparison
similarity
difference (contrast)
logical relationships
reason/conclusion, cause/effect,
conditional relationship between factors
These relationships are usually signaled by an appropriate term, such as one of the following:
sequence or series:
next, also, finally, lastly, then, secondly, furthermore, moreover
time order/chronology :
general/specific relationship:
examples, such as, overall, for instance, in particular
comparison
o similarities
similarly, like, in the same way, likewise
o differences (contrast):
however, unlike, otherwise, whereas, although, however, nevertheless, still, yet
logical relationships
o indicating reason/conclusion, cause/effect, and/or a conditional relationship between factors:
hence, because, if, therefore, so, since, as a consequence, in conclusion
These relationship concepts and terms can be used to discuss connections between paragraphs or larger sections of a text, as well as the relationship of patterns of content or language throughout a text. A particular fact may serve as a reason for a certain conclusion, a cause for a given effect, or an example for a generalization. An assertion isn't a reason, after all, until it is used as the basis for reaching a conclusion. An assertion doesn't necessarily specify a cause until you assert an effect resulting from it. And any single sentence can be, at once, both a conclusion for the preceding discussion and an assumption for the following one.
The Rhetorical Model
An alternative model looks at the rhetorical nature of remarks. This model uses categories such as the following:
definition : indicating what a term means explanation : discussing what an idea means
description : indicating qualities, ingredients, or appearance
narration : recounting events
elaboration : offering details
argumentation : reasoning, or otherwise defending an idea
evaluation : judging or rating
In very general terms, we argue and evaluate positions, define and explain concepts, describe objects, and narrate events. Aspects of any or all may appear anywhere in a discussion.
Recall the observation that relatively specific remarks tend to support other remarks by offering description, reasons, or examples. This model describes that process.
A text can also be examined according to the roles different portions play within the discussion. Roles might include:
Raise an initial idea, topic, or question
Shape the scope or direction of the discussion
Discuss and/or explain an idea
Conclude the idea or otherwise draw elements together
Add material for emphasis, clarification, or purposes of persuasion,
Remarks carrying out these roles can be found throughout a discussion, at all levels of analysis.
The Task Model
The final model presented here reflects tasks that different elements fulfill within a discussion.
What has to be shown to reach a particular conclusion? What evidence is required? What
authorities would be applicable? What assumptions must be made? Whether we are trying to shape our own thoughts or evaluate the effectiveness of a presentation, we can attempt to determine the ingredients necessary to make a certain point.
To show a lie, for instance, we have to indicate a statement that contradicts the speaker's beliefs, and that the speaker intended to deceive. Without these specific elements, we might simply have someone misspeaking, more a case of ignorance than deceit.
We might think of this model somewhat in the way we think of recipes. Recipes indicate not only the ingredients, but also how they are mixed, not only what to include, but also what to do. Recipes indicate steps to be accomplished and the ingredients with which each step is executed.
Interpretation: Analyzing What a Text Means
This final level of reading infers an overall meaning. We examine features running throughout the text to see how the discussion shapes our perception of reality. We examine what a text does to convey meaning: how patterns of content and language shape the portrayal of the topic and how relationships between those patterns convey underlying meaning.
Repeating v. Analyzing: Making The Leap
Rightly or wrongly, much of any student's career is spent reading and restating
texts. For many, the shift to description and interpretation is particularly hard.
They are reluctant to trade the safety of repeating an author's remarks for
responsibility for
their own
assertions. They will freely infer the purpose of an
take responsibility for their own understanding. Others are so attuned to accepting
the written word that they fail to see the text as a viable topic of conversation.
Look at Leonardo da Vinci's painting Mona Lisa, and you see a woman smiling. But you are also aware of a painting. You see different color paint (well, not in this illustration!) and you see how the paint was applied to the wood. You recognize how aspects of the painting are highlighted by their placement or by the lighting.
When examining a painting, you are aware that you are examining a work created by someone. You are aware of an intention behind the work, an attempt to portray something a particular way. Since the painting does not come out and actively state a meaning, you are consciously aware of your own efforts to find meaning in the painting: Is she smiling? Self-conscious? Alluring? Aloof?
Looking at the Mona Lisa, you know that you are not looking at Mona Lisa, a person, but The Mona Lisa, a painting. You can talk not only about the meaning of the picture, but also about how it was crafted. What is the significance of the dream landscape in the background? Why, when we focus on the left side of the picture, does the woman looks somehow taller or more erect than if we focus on the right side? The more features of the painting that you recognize, the more powerful your interpretation will be.
When reading texts, as when reading paintings, we increase understanding by recognizing the craftsmanship of the creation, the choices that the artist/author made to portray the topic a certain way. And yet there is still that feeling that texts are somehow different. Texts do differ from art insofar as they actually seem to come out and say something. There are assertions "in black and white" to fall back on. We can restate a text; we cannot restate a painting or action. Yet a text is simply symbols on a page. Readers bring to their reading recognition of those symbols, an understanding of what the words mean within the given social and historical context, and an understanding of the remarks within their own framework of what might make sense, or what they might imagine an author to have intended.
There is no escape; one way or another we are responsible for the meaning we find in our reading. When a text says that someone burned their textbooks, that is all that is there: an assertion that someone burned their textbooks. We can agree on how to interpret sentence structure enough to agree on what is stated in a literal sense. But any sense that that person committed an
irresponsible, impulsive, or inspired act is in our own heads. It is not stated as such on the page (unless the author says so!). Stories present actions; readers infer personalities, motives, and intents. When we go beyond the words, we are reading meaning.
Additional Observations
A number of observations should be made lest there be misunderstanding.
All Three Modes of Reading and Discussion Are Legitimate
The models are designed to identify varying levels of sophistication and insight in reading and discussion. While one approach may be more complex than another, no one way of reading a text is necessarily better than another. They are simply different, and involve different observations and reasoning. The key thing is to know which style of reading you want to do at any time, how to do it, and how to tell whether you are actually doing it successfully.
All Reading Involves More Than One Form of Reading
The divisions between the three modes of reading are, to some extent, artificial. Dividing reading into reading what a text says, does, and means is somewhat like dividing bicycle riding into concern for balance, speed, and direction. They are all necessary and affect one another. Speed and direction both affect balance; we will fall off, or crash, without all three. And yet we may focus on one or another at any particular time. We can parse each out for analysis.
While the modes of reading and discussing texts can be separated out for purposes of discussion, and it is relatively easy to distinguish between the resulting forms of discussion, in practice these reading techniques overlap. Any particular text can, and will, be read at various levels of understanding at once. We cannot understand what a text says without recognizing relationships between sentences. We cannot even understand sentences without drawing inferences that extend beyond the words on the page. Observations and realizations at any one level of reading
invariably support and spark observations at another. Observations characteristic of all three forms of response can be included in an interpretation.
Finally, while it is relatively easy to distinguish between forms of discussion.—restatement, description, and interpretation—a description might include restatement for the purposes of illustration, and an interpretation may be supported with descriptions of various portions of the text and even restatement of key points (see the example above). In the end, the "highest" level of remark characterizes the discussion a whole.
These Are Not the Only Ways To Respond To a Text
Restatement, description and interpretation are not the only ways one can respond to a text. But they are the ones of interest here, if only because they are the responses that must precede most other forms of response. Readers can obviously offer their own ideas on a topic—but that does not fall under the topic of discussing a text. Readers can criticize an author's handling of a topic based on their own knowledge or views, evaluate the writing style, or attack the honesty of the author. These too are legitimate forms of response, but they require a critical reading of the text first if they are to be meaningful. The first order of business is to make sense of the text, and it is with that task that our efforts are concerned here.
under reviews as a taking-off point for a discussion of the topic itself—all elements that go beyond, but depend on, a careful reading of the text in question. ·
How the Language Really Works:
The Fundamentals of Critical Reading and Effective Writing
The Assassination of Malcolm X
On February 21, 1965, the black leader Malcolm X was assassinated as he started to address a rally in New York City. Malcolm X was a controversial figure. He had spent time in jail as
a street criminal. As spokesman for Elijah Mohammed's Nation of Islam, he articulated a virulently antiwhite program of black self-help. After a trip to Mecca, he broke with Elijah Mohammed and
his antiwhite policies to form an independent political group expressing both national and international concerns.
A: from The New York Times
Malcolm X, the 39-year-old leader of a militant black nationalist movement, was shot to death yesterday afternoon at a rally of his followers in a ballroom in Washington Heights.
Shortly before midnight, a 22-year-old Negro, Thomas Hagan, was charged with the killing. The police rescued him from the ballroom crowd after he has been shot and beaten.
Malcolm, a bearded extremist, had said only a few words of greeting when a fusillade rang out. The bullets knocked him over backward.
fired.
The police said seven bullets had struck Malcolm. Three other Negroes were shot.
About two hours later the police said the shooting had apparently been a result of a feud between followers of Malcolm and members of the extremist group he broke with last year, the Black Muslims. However, the police declined to say whether Hagan is a Muslim.
The Medical Examiner's office said early this morning that a preliminary autopsy showed Malcolm had died of “multiple gunshot wounds.” The office said that bullets of two different calibers as well as shotgun pellets had been removed from his body.
One police theory was that as many as five conspirators might have been involved, two creating a diversionary disturbance.
Hagan was shot in the left thigh and his left leg was broken, apparently by kicks. He was under treatment in the Bellevue Hospital prison ward last night; perhaps a dozen policemen were guarding him, according to the hospital's night erintendent. The police said they had found a cartridge case with four unused .45-caliber shells in his pocket.
Two other Negroes, described as “apparent spectators” by Assistant Chief Inspector Harry Taylor, in command of Manhattan North uniformed police, also were shot. They were identified as William Harris, wounded seriously in the abdomen, and William Parker, shot in a foot. Both were taken to Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, which is close to the ballroom.
Capt. Paul Glaser of the Police Department's Community Relations Bureau said early today that Hagan, using a double-barrelled shotgun with shortened barrels and stock, had killed Malcolm X.
Malcolm, a slim, reddish-haired six-footer with a gift for bitter eloquence against what he considered white exploitation of Negroes, broke in March, 1964, with the Black Muslim movement called the Nation of Islam, headed by Elijah Muhammad . . . .1
B: from Newsweek
series of provisional identities, and he was still looking for the last when, as Malcolm X, 39, apostate Black Muslim and mercurial black nationalist, he was gunned to death by black men last week in a dingy uptown New York ballroom.
He had seen the end coming?predicted it, in fact, so long and so loudly that people had stopped listening. Malcolm X had always been an extravagant talker, a demagogue who titillated slum Negroes and frightened whites with his blazing racist attacks on the “white devils” and his calls for an armed American Mau Mau. His own flamboyant past made it easy to disregard his dire warnings that he had been marked for murder by the Muslims, the anti-white, anti- integrationist Negro sect he had served so devoutly for a dozen years and fought so bitterly since his defection a year ago.
His assassination turned out to be one of his few entirely accurate prophecies. Its fulfillment triggered an ominous vendetta between the Malcolmites and the Muslims?ominous in its intensity even though it was isolated on the outermost extremist fringe of American Negro life.
Death came moments after Malcolm stepped up to a flimsy plywood lectern in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom, just north of Harlem, to address 400 of the faithful and the curious at a Sunday afternoon rally of his fledgling Organization of Afro-American Unity. The extermination plot was clever in conception, swift and smooth in execution. Two men popped to their feet in the front rows of wooden folding chairs, one yelling at the other: “Get your hands off my pockets, don't be messing with my pockets.” Four of Malcolm's six bodyguards moved toward the pair; Malcolm himself chided, “Let's cool it.”
Volley: Then came a second diversion: a man's sock, soaked in lighter fluid and set ablaze, flared in the rear. Heads swiveled, and as they did, a dark, muscular man moved toward the lectern in a crouch, a sawed-off shotgun wrapped in his coat. Blam-blam! A double-barreled charge ripped up through the lectern and into Malcolm's chest. From the left, near the spot where the two men had been squabbling, came a back-up volley of pistol fire.
Malcolm tumbled backward, his lean body rent by a dozen wounds, his heels hooked over a fallen chair. The hall was bedlam.
Malcolm's pregnant wife, Betty, rushed on stage screaming, “They're killing my husband!” His retainers fired wildly through the crowd at the fleeing killers. Four assailants made it to side doors and disappeared.
.45-caliber slug. Howling in pursuit (“Kill the bastard!”), the ballroom crowd caught Hayer on the sidewalk, mauled him, and broke his ankle before police rescued him.
Hayer was charged with homicide. Five days later, police picked up a karate-trained Muslim “enforcer,” Norman 3X Butler, 26, as suspect No. 2.
The arrest of a Muslim surprised almost no one. For all his many enemies, Malcolm himself had insisted to the end that it was the Muslims who wanted him dead. They seemed to dog him everywhere he went; a bare week before his death, he was
firebombed out of his Queens home, the ownership of which he had been disputing with the Muslims. Increasingly edgy, he moved with his wife and four children first to Harlem's Hotel Theresa, finally?the night before his death?to the New York Hilton in the alien world downtown. When he died, Manhattan police assumed that Muslims were involved . . . .2
C: from New York Post
They came early to the Audubon Ballroom, perhaps drawn by the expectation that Malcolm X would name the men who firebombed his home last Sunday, streaming from the bright afternoon sunlight into the darkness of the hall.
The crowd was larger than usual for Malcolm's recent meetings, the 400 filling three-quarters of the wooden folding seats, feet scuffling the worn floor as they waited impatiently, docilely obeying the orders of Malcolm's guards as they were directed to their seats.
I sat at the left in the 12th row and, as we waited, the man next to me spoke of Malcolm and his followers:
“Malcolm is our only hope,” he said. “You can depend on him to tell it like it is and to give Whitey hell.”
Then a man was on the stage, saying:
“. . . I now give you Brother Malcolm. I hope you will listen, hear, and understand.”
There was a prolonged ovation as Malcolm walked to the rostrum past a piano and a set of drums waiting for an evening dance and stood in front of a mural of a landscape as dingy as the rest of the ballroom.
the audience replied “Wa aleikum salaam (And unto you, peace).”
Bespectacled and dapper in a dark suit, his sandy hair glinting in the light, Malcolm said: “Brothers and sisters . . .” He was interrupted by two men in the center of the ballroom, about four rows in front and to the right of me, who rose and, arguing with each other, moved forward. Then there was a scuffle in the back of the room and, as I turned my head to see what was happening, I heard Malcolm X say his last words: “Now, now brothers, break it up,” he said softly. “Be cool, be calm.”
Then all hell broke loose. There was a muffled sound of shots and Malcolm, blood on his face and chest, fell limply back over the chairs behind him. The two men who had approached him ran to the exit on my side of the room shooting wildly behind them as they ran.
I fell to the floor, got up, tried to find a way out of the bedlam.
Malcolm's wife, Betty, was near the stage, screaming in a frenzy. “They're killing my husband,” she cried. “They're killing my husband.”
Groping my way through the first frightened, then enraged crowd, I heard people screaming, “Don't let them kill him.” “Kill those bastards.” “Don't let him get away.” “Get him.”
At an exit I saw some of Malcolm's men beating with all their strength on two men. Police were trying to fight their way toward the two. The press of the crowd forced me back inside.
I saw a half-dozen of Malcolm's followers bending over his inert body on the stage, their clothes stained with their leader's blood. Then they put him on a litter while guards kept everyone off the platform. A woman bending over him said: “He's still alive. His heart's beating.”
Four policemen took the stretcher and carried Malcolm through the crowd and some of the women came out of their shock long enough to moan and one said: “I don't think he's going to make it. I hope he doesn't die, but I don't think he's going to make it.”
I spotted a phone booth in the rear of the hall, fumbled for a dime, and called a photographer. Then I sat there, the surprise wearing off a bit, and tried desperately to remember what had happened. One of my first thoughts was that this was the first day of National Brotherhood Week.3
Copyright @1965 by The New York Times Company.
2Newsweek, March 8, 1965, Copyright @ 1965, Newsweek.Inc. All
rights reserved.
3Thomas Skinner, "I saw Malcolm Die," The New York Post,
